Popular Melbourne Food & Wine Festival goes online

Aliya Ladhabhoy

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival (MFWF), one of the most popular culinary events in the world, is usually hosted in March every year. This time, due to the lockdown, the physical edition has been postponed. The organisers are hosting an online edition of the festival from May 25 to 30, 2020 on their instagram handle @melbfoodandwine that is open to viewers from across the world.

The six-day web festival will bring the world’s top chefs like Massimo Bottura and René Redzepi right into your homes through talks, tours, demonstrations, theatre and trivia.

Argentinian Chef Mauro Colagreco who helms the three-Michelin star restaurant Mirazur in Menton, France, will take viewers on a tour of his backyard garden. Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura and the chef patron of Osteria Francescana, a three-Michelin-star restaurant based in Modena, Italy will talk about all things lasagne. Danish Chef Rene Redzepi and co-owner of the two-Michelin star restaurant Noma will talk about how he has transformed the most talked-about restaurant in the world during the lockdown.

View this post on Instagram

You’ve eaten the croissants. You’ve cruffin’d. Maybe you’ve even done the Lune Lab. But now it’s time to step into the @lunecroissant cube with Kate Reid herself and see how the magic happens. Join Kate and @melbfoodandwine CEO Anthea Loucas Bosha for a behind the scenes tour of Lune on Facebook Live on Thursday 28 May during #MFWFonline. And be sure to pre-order the Lune Macca Saca twice-baked croissant to avoid any serious FOMO during the session. Full details at the bio link.

A post shared by Melbourne Food & Wine Festival (@melbfoodandwine) on May 21, 2020 at 11:35pm PDT

5 Michelin-star chefs’ recipes you can try at home

The line-up also includes interactive sessions with heavyweight chefs who will help you ace your cooking at home. If you’ve been baking sourdough at home and haven’t gotten it quite right, tune into Dear MFWF: Baking with Mike Russell, Baker Bleu who will solve your baking problems. You could also have your dessert and pastry woes put to rest by Australia’s celebrated pastry chef Philippa Sibley of The European.

Learn about vegan hacks from Shannon Martinez, Smith & Daughters and the wonders of the one-pot dish from food writer Julia Busuttil Nishimura. Kitchen walkthroughs and tales about Victoria’s ancient native oyster reefs are also part of the roster.

The online edition is an addition and will not replace the original festival. MFWF’s CEO and Creative Director Pat Nourse hopes to host the festival later in the year with a tweak to conform to the social distancing norms, but promises that it will be cool nonetheless.

Touch-free service will be the new normal in the F&B industry